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June 2014

June 24, 2014

A friend sent me this picture - it's my latest book, Double the Love, with a nice shelf space at the International SHRM Conference. Woohoo! I particularly love that my book is shelved higher than, How to Work for an Idiot(What an idea for a book...Who's going to keep that on his or her desk?... Only idiots, clearly. How ironic!).

We writers LOVE it when people send us pictures of our books (unless they're in the Super Bargain bins, then we don't want to know) so feel free to take a picture and send it to me anytime!

I received another bit of good news on the bookfront today, my publisher put up a website for the book. You can find it here.

I sure would appreciate you sharing this with anyone you know who has an interest in accountability and engagement. And if you have read (or skimmed! hey, I'm a realist) my book and like it, I would love it if you posted a review on Amazon. Thanks!

One more thing.... I know of three people who are using the book for management training and one asked if I would be willing to sign them all for her managers. The answer is Heck Yes! If you would like to give my book to your management team, let me know and I will make it special for you. Perhaps we could even do a kick off call or webinar. I would love to engage with folks on this topic.

Looking at the picture above again, I think my book is clearly the prettiest, don't you?!

June 15, 2014

I thought I would do a few posts sharing a few editorial comments on the "Secrets" I shared in Double the Love. There are 11 secrets in the book, and this post discusses the last one.

The secret to performance velocity is design. Be intentional and create the world you seek.

In the book, I talk about this secret using the metaphor of the bento box. Like this one:

Doesn't this look yummy? Thinking about it now, I bet I was really hungry when I selected this metaphor. I might not get all the way through this post before suggesting to hubby Bill that we go for some great Japanese food! I love the contrasts between the miso soup, the crunchy tempura, the wasabi on the sushi, the earthy rice dishes, and the sweet ending. But I digress...

I love bento box meals because they make me feel complete. The idea for the bento is elegant and simple. Everything has a place and the number of places leads to greater diversity in food items. Look again at the picture. If you were given this for a meal, you would not ask for more. It is all there.

The same goes for each day and week and month and year. We all have a virtual bento that serves as a framework for how we will spend precious time. You might not think you have a leadership bento, but you do. The design is there. The $64,000 question (which strike me needs to be adjusted for inflation to about $467,000) is, does the current design serve your goals and intentions?

I ask this question a lot when I work with leaders, especially when I am coaching. We have many more things that we'd LOVE to do and accomplish than we can in a day. It's OK to dream big as long as we don't go into victim mode when we can't complete everything:

Whaaa! I can't get anything done!

Whaagh! My meetings take up too much time!

Boohoo! I don't have time to exercise, I'm too busy! (Sorry, that one's mine.)

Phooey! I can't control my calendar!

If you tend to wallow in victim mode, it would be better to dial back the goals or learn how to get out of victim mode. You don't want your goals to serve as a reminder of your constant failures, if that is how you see them (hint: highly successful people have HUGE goals, but see the gap as a work in progress, not a current failure). And we need to embrace the idea of making progress in several areas concurrently. Notice I did not say "multitask." We can only do one thing at a time, research has shown us that multitasking is a myth. We can, however, make progress on many things in a given day or week by thoughtfully CHOOSING how we spend our time.

This is where design comes in. We can't plan for everything, but the more we operate with a bento box mindset, the more we will accomplish. Design everything you want to accomplish into your week and then be flexible (again, we don't want to slip into victimitis). This is better than rolling into Monday morning without a plan and lamenting that the week will inevitably get sucked away from you by the multitude of daily fires you need to fight and fights you need to mediate. Whaagh!

Be more Zen about it. Plan. Do. Flex. Plan. Do. Flex. Create your leadership bento box and feel more satisfied. And this is why I believe that design is the secret to performance velocity (engagement with progress).

June 08, 2014

Oh, golly, I have not been doing a very good job for my blog community. It has been far too long since I posted. Or better said, it has been far too long since I contributed (there is a difference - I could post every day with something that sounds like "buy my new book" but that would not contribute to you at all.)

I am a lax blogger. I have not shared a new post in FOREVER!

And I am a lax book marketer (all writers must be marketers or risk being unread - the ultimate failure). Ideally, I would be "out there" with book-related posts and readings and speeches but I am nowhere. And it is not because the book is not important to me; in fact, I REALLY want my latest to do well and be widely read.

And the lesson in all this is that if we want to belong to a vibrant community we have to feed it. We have to do our part to make it better and keep it alive. Honestly, this is an area of weakness for me. I am most comfortable being an introverted recluse. I could honestly be alone in the wilderness for a long time and not freak out. I don't invite people to coffee and I should. I rarely take the initiative to meet new people at conferences. And I am not very good at keeping up with people - people who I care about, BTW. I have not gone to see my father in far too long.

Feeding the community is a deliberate thing, but does not need to be a huge burden. We can do one or two things each week to feed our communities. Send out a few emails asking to connect. Do 10 minutes of MBWA. Contribute to social media (with something other than a picture of your lunch entre). Thank someone. Offer your help.

FEEDing a community looks like:

Support - Helping some make progress and move forward. This an awesome gift.

Re-resonate - Sometimes we like a well-delivered reminder to "snap" us back into alignment. Case in point - How many books about success say basically the same thing? Millions! And yet we like to read each slightly new spin. Messages like that success does not make us happy..... We know this!

Of the above criteria, I am naturally better at Innovation and Education. I stink at Support, Following, and Connecting. I will do them when asked, but I don't show as much initiative in these areas as I would like.

What about you? I know I am not the only one who struggles to feed their communities.

I am going to shoot for one contribution on this blog per week (requests to buy my book don't count toward the goal). If you have any burning management questions you'd like me to address, let me know. Otherwise it will be a surprise! I want to be a better community member.